


Distraction

by galaxyostars



Series: The DMC Collection [13]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: (not of any characters calm down), Decapitation, Declarations Of Love, False Pregnancy, Implied/Referenced Sex, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Injury, Phone Calls & Telephones, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-27 14:51:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20047861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxyostars/pseuds/galaxyostars
Summary: “Enough about Vergil,” Dante hand-waved. “Have you heard from Kyrie?”“First thing I did after killing that demon was call home. She didn’t pick up.”“You should call her,” Dante said.“I’m not going to bother her. I left a message—she knows I’ve called. She’ll get back to me when she’s got time.”With an eye roll, his uncle got up out of his chair, pulling the corded phone off the wall and punching in numbers. The Fortuna house number.





	1. Chapter 1

_Let’s go to France! _Dante said.

_It’ll be fun!_ Dante said.

_FRANCE IS NOT FUN_, Nero thought to himself, slashing through the eighth demon along the mortar brick alleyway in the small-town Dante had dragged him to. It was another horde, not entirely unexpected given the hell gate in place here—the one Vergil had said he’d take care of. Evidently, that hadn’t happened. His being here made next to no sense with the two twins being available to handle it. And that Dante had ‘recruited’ the unwilling Nero just as Kyrie was getting sick had grated his nerves.

He’d been dragged out of the house while Kyrie laid face-down on their bed with a pillow tucked under her torso. A stomach bug.

Nothing overly serious, but Nero was downright _pissed_ that Dante either couldn’t or didn’t want to understand that Nero had priorities _other_ than demon hunting. Leaving Kyrie to look after three kids whilst sick had left him on edge, regardless of Nico promising to lend a hand. If anything, that only served to upset him _further._

Never mind that his first trip in an airplane had been horrendous, and he’d hated every second of it. Turns out, Nero is not a great passenger of _giant mechanical birds_ that had no place being in the sky. He had wings of his own—and so did Dante. But pointing out this to his newly accepted uncle was like talking to Nico when she’s buried in a mechanical creation: he could talk all he liked, but there was a very slim chance he’d be heard.

And now, despite all of that, he was being _sidelined_. Left to take care of the trashy demons not worth his time or effort while Dante and Vergil raced off on their own.

Rawhide’s whip flurried, digging into the flesh of a minor demon with ease. The repetition of the motion was growing tiresome. His limbs were antsy for another kind of movement; retreat for home. He had better places to be, and better things to be doing. Lady or Trish could handle this with about the same ease he is right now. Hell, even that red-haired woman that had dropped by Dante’s shop months ago seemed capable of handling herself.

With the minor demon sliced into tiny little bits, Nero’s surveillance of the area was interrupted: coming from the rooftop of a nearby building, Dante landed hard on the ground next to Nero.

The “legendary” demon hunter’s smile just pissing him off further, and Nero glowered at him. “You mind telling me what the hell is going on?”

“Oh, cheer up _sport_,” Dante teased, bringing the devil sword he’d _named after himself_ up to rest on his shoulder. He wandered just past Nero at an easy stride. “Vergil’s just up ahead.”

“At the hell gate.”

“Bingo.”

“He said he’d take care of this last week. What the hell happened?”

“He _did_.”

Nero pointed the Red Queen at a demon body, current disintegrating to a bubbling black ooze on the pavement. “He calls _this_ ‘taken care of’?”

He was given a side-long glance in response. “This coming from the kid who decided to just leave hell gates intact back in Fortuna.”

The dig at him hurt a little more than Nero cared to admit. He was admittedly naïve about a lot of things back then—the hell gates were (are) cultural. He might have had scepticism about The Order long before Dante showed up, but he was hardly about to broadcast duplicity as he worked with them. That they became active was a fluke.

His job had been to go after Dante, not destroy the holy relics of their religion. 

“Trust me,” Dante tilted his head with a nod, a knowing smile touching the corner of his lips. “It’s not often you find a small hell gate paired with a _proper_ hell gate. Vergil’s just as upset about this as you are.”

A scream rang out from the main street. The two devil hunters fled the alleyway, feet thumping along the damp ground, and rounded the corner. The street lamps did little in the way of great illumination, yellow light failing to reach the middle of the road, but Nero’s eyes adjusted quickly.

A man had fallen to the ground, struggling to crawl from an aggressive demon bearing its glowing red gaze down upon him. Vergil’s coat tails shimmered in the low lighting, dangling close to the ground as he held the demon’s weapon back with the Yamato—but the katana not exactly built for such a defensive manoeuvre. Watching the monster whose fist was easily the size of Vergil’s _body_ press down on the Yamato, only highlighted how specialised in offense the weapon actually was.

The only thing Yamato really had going for it was Vergil’s expert technique and it’s being powered by some serious demonic mojo. Considering the Red Queen could go toe to toe with it, that mojo wasn’t exactly dominating anything either (_except for the fabric of space_, Nero mused to himself). No wonder Vergil had spent most of his life looking for _more power_.

Since the Red Queen was put together with parts primarily from The Order, one had to question whether _it_ was entirely manmade itself—the sword would have significantly damaged any ordinary katana, but the Yamato might have cut right through it with some precision strikes on Vergil’s part, had it been _just_ steel. But the point still stands. For the Yamato to be effective against most enemy combatants, Vergil must have dedicated a huge chunk of his early years to mastering the speed with which he wields the damn thing.

The axe digging into the Yamato pressed down harder. Vergil fell to one knee, the pavement cracking under him. The son of Sparda growled in response.

Nero glanced at Dante standing beside him, noting the perplexed look on the older man’s face. “Shouldn’t we help him?”

White eyebrows pinched together. “If he wanted help, he’d . . . ask . . . ?”

“_I heard that!_” Vergil growled. The man’s arms shook under the pressure of the axe, Yamato unsteady in his hands. The human Vergil had defended finally scampered away. But Vergil could make no move, lest he be crushed or maimed.

Something was . . . off. Nero could feel it. “I’m calling it,” the twenty-something slammed the tip of Red Queen into the ground, revving its combustion engine. 

A surge of power flowed through him as he reached across the way, blue spectral claws into the iron giant. The hot blade sliced upward when Nero impacted against it, cutting through the hard skin of his enemy.

Vergil reared forward, Yamato parrying off the axe and striking back at the giant. But there was no following flurry of cuts. Instead, Vergil stumbled forward, ending up back on his knees. His hand braced himself on the ground. Yamato lay abandoned on the ground next to him—awfully uncharacteristic of him, but Nero had other concerns at that moment.

Successfully avoiding the long swing of an axe, Nero jumped up. He stabbed the blade of his sword into the neck of the giant, revving the engine once more and burying it near to the hilt. He snatched the Yamato from the ground. His father’s blade joined his own, both impaling the demon in close quarters. Nero pulled at the grips of both weapons, spectral hands practised at wielding both blades, and split them apart.

His sheer amount of brute force had near-decapitated the demon. Nero’s feet hit the ground, the demon stumbling back into the dull street lamp. Just as he was about to leap forward and finish the giant off, Dante’s egotistical sword swung down from the rooftops, dragging its master along with it. The blade cut through the last bits of muscle and bone holding the giant’s head to its body.

The demon crumbled to the ground defeated. As it bubbled away into black ooze, Nero stood incredulous. The familiar rage burned in his chest as he gaped at the older man.

“What?” Dante strolled toward him, letting his sword dissipate. He reached down, scooping up Yamato and the Red Queen, tossing the latter to Nero. “Why the look?”

“Are you-” Nero stopped himself. He took a short breath, but exasperated hot air escaped his nose. “I had it. It was going perfectly well and then you had to swoop in like some _blazing hero_-”

Dante shrugged. “Gotta stay relevant somehow, right?”

“I might actually stab you.”

He ignored Nero and approached Vergil. The elder twin remained in his place on the ground, seemingly unmoving throughout the whole battle with the iron giant. Blood had dripped down his face, a cheek split and growing purple underneath the open wound.

Vergil looked . . . _tired_. He ignored the hand Dante offered, pushing himself up. A pained groan escaped his lips—he stilled for a moment, as straight as a rod as his piercing eyes glared at Dante. He snatched Yamato back, fingers tight around its grip. Ever so slowly, he sheathed it. “The hell gate has been cracked, but not yet destroyed.”

“We noticed,” Nero snapped, sauntering up to stand by the twins. He glanced at Dante. “I thought you took out the Fortuna gates with ease.”

The insinuation being that Vergil and Dante were on the same level strength-wise. Part of him hoped Vergil took the query as an insult, as either Vergil was not as powerful as they’d all initially believed, or this gate truly was a piece of work none of them had prepared for.

“The Fortuna gates were created with lesser demons,” Dante explained. “Agnus designed them. And Agnus wasn’t technically a demon.”

“He just became an artificial one.” As Credo had. And somehow, they’d deluded themselves into believing they’d become angels, of all things. 

“Exactly.”

“So, what, _real_ demonic hell gates are harder to destroy?”

Dante rose a questioning eyebrow, turning his head to stare at Vergil. Apparently he expected him to answer the question. But the man glared once more.

“You may remember that I was not _present_ for the fall of the Temen-ni-gru,” he growled. “Besides, it was _also_ manmade. It hardly counts.”

“You keep telling yourself that.”

“Hold up,” Nero rose his hands, eyebrows pinched in confusion. He followed Dante as he started to walk away again. “Temeni-_what_?”

“_Temen-ni-gru_,” Dante corrected with a sigh. “It’s a long story.”

A sharp cry drew their heads back into the direction of Vergil. He’d braced himself against the remains of a car, eyes clothed and chest heaving.

“Okay, now I _definitely_ know something’s wrong,” Nero pointed at Vergil, closing the distance between them with a snappy stride. He ignored any protest Vergil had, pulling his father’s arm around his shoulders and standing him upright again. “You’re injured.”

“I am fine.”

“The kid’s just gonna keep pestering you if you blow him off,” called Dante, still walking away. Vergil growled again, reluctantly (but thankfully) accepting his son’s help. “Let’s take him home. I’ll take care of Vergil, and you’ll take down that gate.”

Destroying the hell gate would now be his responsibility. After Dante’s prodding about failing to destroy the ones in Fortuna and stealing his kill, _now_ he was open to letting Nero take control?

He watched he and Vergil’s feet as they navigated the debris back to Vergil’s small apartment, and couldn’t help but feel a small amount of suspicion rise from his chest.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dante addresses Vergil's wounds.

Vergil’s small abode was as sparse as Dante expected it to be. He’d left the door unlocked, allowing for easy access. But as Dante flicked on the lights, the first thing he saw was the large bookshelf.

Nero assisted Vergil through the door as Dante stared at the lines of books. It was unsurprising, really, that these books were mostly non-fiction. Meticulously ordered by author, rather than title alphabetical order. Several looked vaguely familiar to him, ones that had come from the library of Fortuna Castle—not that he’d read those, but the hard covers were distinct in their silver lacing on blue and green fabric. These weren’t labelled as _Second Edition_, though.

Dante smiled to himself. _Look at that. Vergil’s a dirty thief._

A few more steps along, more titles caught his eye. _The Book of Urizen _and _The Complete Prose and Poetry of William Blake_ sat undisturbed in their places on the shelf. The custom copy V had lugged around was still in Nero’s possession—Vergil had not asked for it back, despite Nero offering to return it. Maybe his brother had thought it a gesture to his son.

His brother gave a quiet, pained huff as Nero dropped him down into what was likely his reading chair. Almost like a puppy looking for instruction, Nero glanced back to Dante—but he was still focussed on the shelving. One particularly thick title was a deep red, its stitches black on its spine. A fabric bookmark was draping down, Vergil apparently half-way through reading it.

_Destruction of the Devil_.

Dante turned to Nero with bright eyes and an optimistic grin. “You ever destroyed a hell gate before?”

_Of course not_, said the glower Nero had across his face.

“Pretty simple, really. Slay the demon, destroy the gate, then come back here. You have any problems, come running.”

“I won’t have any problems,” Nero pushed past Dante, pulling out Blue Rose. Without a glance back, he opened the door, passed through, and ran off to the right.

Dante’s eyes lost their shine as soon as his nephew’s back was no longer visible.

The book sitting half-finished on Vergil’s shelf irked him. He’d read the first two, maybe three chapters. Once, years ago. Not exactly ‘light reading’, but what little he read had been informative, to say the least. The introduction claimed the author Wolfgang Castro was a man who had been to Hell and (somehow) returned. His father had been a physical demonic case for him to study, to pick apart and put back together again. Castro’s interpretation of certain ailments had been not only limited by the global understanding of medicine in the 1600s but was also written informally. He was as much of a legitimate scientist as Dante was a money-making guitar player.

Besides, Dante highly doubted the poor bastard Wolfgang Castro held captive was his father. Though he still didn’t quite have a handle on the timeline of Sparda’s movements throughout history, that he’d just hung around having his fingers removed for kicks was absurd. Castro would not have been able to contain him, not for long at least.

Lady stumbled upon _Destruction of the Devil_ after he’d left it unaccompanied on his desk. The book’s introduction alone had prompted her to empty an entire clip of her handgun into his copy before setting the remains alight. She’d then forced him to pay her back for the clip. That same week, the power to her place had conveniently cut out, and she’d invited herself to stay at the shop for a few days. Enzo also dropped in, with no jobs, “just passing by” awfully frequently and uncharacteristically. Looking back, it had been obvious to everyone _but _Dante that Lady had stuck him on suicide watch. A fair call, to be honest. To read explicit theories involving the removal of his own father’s individual limbs was not a great move for his already cracked psyche.

He couldn’t remember what drove him to read the book. It provided him with no information of _use_—not in practise, at least. But there were certain elements Dante identified with, namely to do with strength and healing. The book claimed to have the “cure for demonism”, as if demons could be exorcised.

“You neglected to inform him about devil arms,” came the voice of Vergil, getting comfortable on his chair.

Could demons be exorcised? Well, yes, but also no. It depends on who you ask.

“Nero’s resourceful. I’m sure he’ll figure it out.”

He swung round to set eyes on Vergil, approaching slowly. The cut on his cheek was slowly healing—excruciatingly slowly, quite frankly. His eyelids appeared heavy, the blue eyes underneath them unfocussed. While his right leg and hands were facilitating the readjustment in his chair, his left remained perfectly still.

Dante pulled off his gloves and started unravelling the wraps underneath. “Tell me where it hurts.”

Vergil narrowed his eyes. “You’re mocking me?”

“I’m being serious.”

Dropping the fabric onto the table, Dante opened the door to Vergil’s bathroom. “Boring” and “barren” seemed to be the running theme for his brother’s humble abode, but the medicine cupboard remained perfectly stocked. Disinfectant, bandages and wraps, creams, tweezers and even scalpels. Everything but pain meds. _Typical_.

He re-emerged to see Vergil having shed his coat, successfully having removed his pants without even a hiss of pain. But Dante could see it, clouding his eyes.

The knee Vergil had taken against the iron giant was swelling rapidly, the skin on his shin had been cut into.

“I don’t think you’ll be able to save your pants.”

“I have an excellent tailor.”

Dante smirked, placing the medical supplies next to the lounge chair, before locating a stool. He sat himself down, pulling up Vergil’s left leg to rest on his lap. His brother clenched his fist, slamming it into the arm of his chair as his teeth dug into his lower lip.

“I’m gathering that hurts?” Dante stilled, giving Vergil time to recompose himself. But his twin said nothing. Dante sighed, carefully placing his fingers around Vergil’s kneecap and bending his leg upward. It didn’t move unnaturally and wasn’t awfully stiff. Some serious tissue damage, maybe, but nothing that wouldn’t heal in the next week.

As Vergil’s hand relaxed, Dante turned his attention to the torn skin. It’d slowed in its bleeding, clotting in just the right areas. Bits of road remained embedded across his skin, having spent a good amount of time pressed down into it by a giant demon. The tweezers would come in handy now. Dante set to work.

“You seem practised at this,” Vergil noted.

“I go demon hunting with a woman that thinks she can take on the world,” he grinned. “She’s not as indestructible as we are.”

Much to her own distaste, there have been many times over the last decade that Lady’s been impaled, shot, burned, or ended up with dislocated or broken limbs. Sometimes it’s even by her own hand—once she’d cracked something in her shoulder after using a weapon with some serious kickback. They hadn’t noticed until she’d slept on it that night on Dante’s couch.

That said, Lady wasn’t reckless. It was just that the job occasionally had more of a kick than other professions. He’d lost count of the amount of times Lady had been stuck digging a spur or bullet out from his back that he’d healed over.

As he picked bits of rock from Vergil’s wound, Dante broke the tender silence. “I have to ask you something.”

His brother huffed, hand flattening against the chair. “What?”

“I noticed one of the books on your shelf is by Wolfgang Castro,” he drawled. “I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m surprised you read,” Vergil tilted his head. “It’s for education purposes, nothing more.”

“Vergil, it talks about our father being pulled apart like a Barbie doll—excuse me if I’m not certain how that could be considered ‘educational’.”

“Because I performed a similar action on Nero.”

For a moment, Dante’s hand stilled. Vergil had ripped Nero’s Devil Bringer arm clean off—and for at least a month, he’d been without his demon capabilities. The spectral arm he’d used when Dante met him in Fortuna had been absent, and Nico had made him a suitable combat replacement. Since he’d regained his arm upon finding the power of his devil trigger, no one had brought it up. “What does that have to do with Castro?”

“He was correct, Dante. Nero regrew his arm back. I wasn’t aware we could regrow limbs upon losing them. Nero came into his arm on accident—I believe that’s a topic we should at least be aware of,” Vergil gave his version of a shrug, tensing his shoulders. “With this news from Kyrie, I was admittedly curious if he’d attempted to study procreation.”

His blood turned to ice, his questions regarding Nero’s mother—and Kyrie’s phone call—coming back to the fore-front of his mind. “And?”

Half-demon kids weren’t exactly a well-documented occurrence. They had blown the theory that the Sparda bloodline would always conceive twins out the water when Nero showed up on the scene as a Vergil’s only son. Biologically speaking, that made sense.

Unless he had a twin brother they hadn’t found yet.

Fuck, wouldn’t _that_ be a crazy day?

“To our mutual relief, he did not,” he sighed. “I believe I would have thrown the book into the nearest ocean.”

_Thank god for that_. The mini panic attack Dante was having dissipated. He pulled a thick piece of concrete from Vergil’s open wound, pleased that his brother at least _winced_. Serves him right for the handful of emotions he’d just put Dante through.

But Vergil sensed Dante’s mild anxiety. His eyebrows pulled together. “I am fine, Dante.”

He nodded his head slowly. “I’ve read a bit of it,” he admitted. “Namely ‘exercising demons’.”

The words were unspoken. Dante had been there before, once or twice. On the edge of nothingness, with nowhere to go and seemingly no one to turn to. With no purpose. That had taken time to wade through the obstacles he placed in front of himself, and he was still on that long road and likely would be forever. That’s just how it worked: no miracle cure for depression, it just _was_.

He’d feared when Vergil moved here that he too might become aimless—solitude was appealing, sure, but humans moved in groups, in packs. While Dante had Patty, Lady and Trish to drop in and check if he was still breathing every other day, Vergil had chosen a distant isolation.

“I have no intention of killing myself,” Vergil snapped, disgusted at the notion. “That defeats the purpose of having escaped Hell in the first place. Why would I wish to return?”

“I’m just making sure you’re okay. There’s been a lot of changes over the last year. I mean, you moved to _France_. And now Kyrie thinks she’s expecting . . .” Dante dropped the tweezers to the floor, taking up the disinfectant and gauze and motioning to them. “Ready for this?”

Vergil gave a reluctant nod. Quickly and efficiently, Dante soaked the gauze and pressed it against the open wound. Vergil’s hand scrunched into a fist once more, teeth clenched. His leg on Dante’s lap twitched instinctively away from the pain.

With the wound sufficiently disinfected, Dante pulled it away. Ordinarily, bandaging it would be pointless, but his brother seemed . . . weak. His healing factor not quick kicking in at full speed. Without comment on the matter, he began to wrap the wound accordingly.

Being on a similar wave-link to his twin, Vergil picked up on it. “I have not slept well since Kyrie called.”

So he wasn’t weak, but _exhausted_. Dante tried to hide his smile, but failed miserably. He’d been positively giddy since Kyrie had gotten off the phone with him, but Vergil may have a different perspective on the matter. “Want to talk about it?”

Silence. Dante kept wrapping the bandage around his leg, careful of his brother’s need. He’d have to get some ice on it after he’d finished with this.

“I am . . . concerned for her welfare.”

He looked up at Vergil questioningly. “Her welfare?”

“I don’t know what became of Nero’s mother,” he admitted. “I worry childbirth may have killed her. I would not wish that upon Nero.”

Statistically speaking, the number of women who died during childbirth was something like one in every five thousand, if that. And he absolutely did not ask Patty about that. That’s a whole other story.

“Nero’s mother aside, _our_ mother was fine. And she had twins in the seventies. Counts for something, right?”

Vergil was not amused by the statement. The wound sufficiently wrapped, Dante got up and raided Vergil’s freezer, finding a bag of frozen vegetables that would work well enough as an ice pack for the swelling knee.

“She’s not even sure she’s actually pregnant, Vergil,” Dante said, placing the vegetables on Vergil’s leg. “That’s the whole reason we’re here. Let her have her test, and then she can work out what’s what.”

“You don’t believe she is?”

“I believe Nero lives with three kids already. That _alone_ would have prompted the use of protection,” he shrugged. “Then again, he might just be a chip off the old block-”

“Enough.”

Dante chuckled, leaning back a little. He changed the subject. “I don’t know. I’m realistic. I think her asking us to bring Nero out here was to make sure he doesn’t get his hopes up or start blaming himself for something that hasn’t happened.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dante tells Nero to call home.

Vergil had fallen asleep by the time Nero returned. The twenty-something was covered in _ick_ ranging from various bits of demon, his energy spent. He’d sauntered right past Dante, heading directly to Vergil’s shower. He was surprised the door hadn’t woken his father, but his mind was elsewhere.

The public phone he’d used had dialled correctly, it’d rung home. It’d rung six times, but no answer. He couldn’t stop the anxiety in the pit of his stomach, but his mind was trying to be logical. _Everything is fine_, Nero told himself. If there’d been a problem, Nico would have called. Or Julio would have called. They all had Vergil’s number—Dante would have hunted Nero down and instrumented their return to Fortuna if they’d been attacked or someone was dying.

So why was he still on edge?

The warm spray of the water was a welcome change from being cold and sticky. The showerhead wasn’t nearly as nice as the one back home, but it’d do for now washing away the unmentionables and leaving him lethargic. He just stood there, engrossed in the steam. 

When he’d spent over ten minutes there, Dante stepped in to check on him, leaving a pile of clothes for him to wear while his jacket and pants were soaked (because once again, his shirt wasn’t salvageable). If he hadn’t just finished destroying a hell gate and wasn’t already tired as fuck, maybe he’d have had an issue with Dante just walking in on him while he was showering. The man had no sense of dedicated privacy.

Nero finally emerged from the bathroom shirtless, a towel draped over his head and pyjama pants surprisingly well-fitting. The burn on his shoulder blade was doing its weird regenerating-skin-thing. It stung like a bitch, and he could feel a popping sensation right down to the bone, but it’d be back to normal soon.

He dragged Red Queen up onto the kitchen countertop, kit to clean the blade on the bench (probably put there by Dante). The sword had struggled to do any heat-related damage toward the end of his battle with the gatekeeper. The constant igniting had resulted in the soft blackening of the blade—not unusual, but it needed attention. Nero pulled the ignition pin out from the fuel compressor to inspect it, turning it over in his fingers—charred, beyond recognition. The entire compressor might need replacing when he gets back to Fortuna. It was a problem for another day.

His eyes glanced up to the very unconscious Vergil. The man was slumped back in his chair, chin resting on his chest, clad only in his vest’s undershirt and boxer briefs. Honestly, it looked like the sleep could do him some good—a slight tinge of purple had formed under his eyes, uncommon for him. The way the iron giant had him pinned to the ground was unsettling to think about. And he’d come away _injured_. A son of Sparda—Nero’s _father_, capable of much travesty and the host of the divine power of the Qliphoth fruit—had barely walked away from a relatively simple demon.

Fingers prodded into the skin around his burn. “_Ow_,” he turned his head over his shoulder to stare at Dante. “The hell is wrong with you?”

“You’re bruising.”

Nero shrugged his shoulder out from under Dante’s hand. It was growing stiff, twinging at the motion. “You realise I heal _slower_ than you and Vergil, right?”

“I . . . did _not_ realise that,” Dante stood back, crossing his arms. “You heal faster when you trigger, though.”

“I’m not triggering in my father’s home, Dante,” Nero snapped. He recognised the reference Dante was making. It wasn’t too long ago a demon had shot him with a crossbow bolt that wedged itself into his torso, which he’d then healed around. Dante had forced him to trigger when he’d decided that surgically removing the bolt wasn’t worth the trouble. His demon form had done the trick, and the Dante-inflicted injury had healed near-instantly. But his ribs had ached for a week afterward.

Nero compressed the brake twice, giving the durandal’s hilt a slight twist. When the relief plates retracted, he gave the butt of the blade a sharp tug. Red Queen came apart in two separate pieces, it’s mechanism placed off to one side on the bench and its blade left for his attention. He’d inspect what repairs it’d need later. For now, he’d just clean up the blade.

Rag in hand, and counter sufficiently covered with an old towel, Nero wiped the dried black stains off his sword. “So you’re worried about _me_, but _Vergil_ taking a beating is not a problem?”

“He’s just tired,” he said as he opened the fridge pulling out what might have been a beer. He dropped onto a stool on the other side of the bench.

“You both spent months in Hell with next to no sleep, yet now he’s in the human world, he gets _tired_?”

“First, demons thrive in Hell. We’re half demon. Sleep wasn’t as much of an issue when you’re constantly absorbing demonic energy. Second, he’s-”

He held his mouth open for a few more seconds, but he did not finish his sentence. Instead, he cracked the bottle cap off and took a swig.

“He’s what?” Nero pressed.

Dante hesitated. “. . . researching. He’s been researching.”

The suspicion he’d felt earlier began to crawl up his neck. Nero flipped the Red Queen’s blade over, continuing his ministrations, choosing not to stare at Dante. “Researching what?”

His uncle took in a deep breath, his shoulders held high for a moment. “Sparda, I guess. There’s a book that supposedly gives insight into what makes us tick.”

“Like what? A biology book about demons?”

“You could say that. It’s not worth your time, though.”

“So Vergil’s being exhausting himself? Over a book?”

Dante didn’t respond past a half-smile. He reached for Red Queen’s mechanism, but Nero whipped the rag against his wrist as a deterrent. The man pouted.

“This ‘research’ isn’t for any power quests, is it?”

“Nah,” he scoffed. “I think it’s actually to make amends.”

Nero’s nose scrunched in a mild scepticism. “Does it have anything to do with his not closing the hell gate when he said he would?”

“I told you already. Vergil is just as upset about it as you are.”

“I’m _sure_.”

“Enough about Vergil,” Dante hand-waved. “Have you heard from Kyrie?”

Nero’s hand stilled on top of the blade. There’s the anxiety again. He shook his head, hefting up the blade to double check that it was clear of any further demon blood—it was. “First thing I did after killing that demon was call home. She didn’t pick up.”

“Isn’t it close to mid-day over there?”

“Yeah. She’s probably just busy with the kids,” he sighed. “We kind of left her in the lurch. Does Vergil have any oil?”

Dante pointed his bottle toward the top shelf, at a bottle with a Japanese label. Considering the Yamato resting next to its scabbard in their dedicated holders on the wall, the Japanese sword oil was not unexpected at all. He shook his head, incredibly hesitant to use what wasn’t easily retrieved here in Amboise. The Red Queen could wait until he got back to Fortuna—at least then he could perform all its necessary repairs.

“You should call her,” Dante said, taking another mouthful of—what even was that? Beer? It didn’t smell like beer. The label was in French and he’d be damned if he understood a word of it.

Nero rested the sword’s blade next to its hilt and pulled its case up from next to the bench. The steel returned to its dedicated slot no problem, but the mechanisms had to be disassembled. He glanced up at Dante for a moment, pulling apart the ventilation nozzles and injection port, setting each in their spots one by one. “I’m not going to bother her. I left a message—she knows I’ve called. She’ll get back to me when she’s got time.”

With an eye roll, his uncle got up out of his chair, pulling the corded phone off the wall and punching in numbers. The Fortuna house numbers.

Nero glared. “Dante, she’s _sick-_”

But he was tossed the phone, and they were lucky the cord had been long enough to reach him. Nero sighed, placing it between his ear and shoulder. If he kept his hands busy with his sword, maybe he wouldn’t feel so anxious.

And so the phone rang.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

His eyes glanced back up to Dante at the fourth round of ringing. He’d made a move to take the phone back in his hand-

“_Hello?_”

The phone was re-wedged between his ear and shoulder. Nero ignored the smug look Dante gave when he returned to his stool. “Kyrie!”

“_Nero? I was just about to call. Sorry I missed you earlier._”

“It’s okay. We’re finished up here. I just wanted to check in. Are you okay?”

He could feel her smile on the other end of the line. The rampant whizzing his stomach had been doing earlier had subsided—she was okay. Still sick, if her voice was any indication, but okay. “_Yes. I just came back from the doctor._”

“What’s the diagnosis?”

At this, Dante took another swig of his drink, his eyebrows high while he stared at something, anything other than Nero. Almost like he was expecting news. His nephew frowned a little, placing the last piece of the Red Queen in its case.

“_Just a stomach bug,_” Kyrie breathed.

“Seriously?” he took the phone in his hand proper, still holding it to his ear. “You’ve had it for a week, now. When Julio had it, it was over in two, three days.”

Dante deflated, eyebrows dropping into more of a scowl. Which left Nero even _more_ perplexed.

“_I know. She even did blood work just to be sure. It’s a bug. I just need to stay off my feet and get some rest._”

A mild disappointment radiated down the phone, and even from Dante. Nero’s frown subsided, turning his back to his uncle. Whatever Dante’s problem was could wait. Kyrie was . . . something was off. “Hey—I’ll be home soon,” he murmured. “M’gonna look after you. Nico can take care of the kids for a couple days, Dante probably can, too.”

“_The kids are fine, Nero,”_ Kyrie laughed. “_They’ve been good.”_

“I’m glad.”

“_What about you? Are you okay?_”

“Yeah,” he rolled his right shoulder. The popping sensation had stopped, but it was still stiff. “A few burns here and there. I’ll be healed up before I’m home. Honestly, I’m more worried about Vergil.”

“_What happened_?”

“Nothing, he’s . . .” Nero trailed off. “I don’t know. He seems out of it. Got pummelled by a simple demon. Dante says he’s just exhausted.”

He was met with silence from the other end of the line. Nero frowned, leaning against the counter. “Kyrie?”

“_I’m here._”

A relieved breath escaped his lips. “You sure you’re okay?”

“_I’m fine, Nero,” _she sighed. “_But I think I know why he’s not himself. That may be my fault._”

He smirked at nothing. She was selfless—ever so fucking selfless, even when she didn’t have to be. He loved her with every fibre of his being. But sometimes he questioned exactly how much responsibility she liked to put upon herself, and how that ultimately affected her. Even with his smile, Nero’s eyes closed with a slight cringe, trying to work out how anything about what happened to Vergil today could be Kyrie’s fault. “What do you mean?”

“_I organised for Dante to take you to Amboise._”

“ . . . okay? Can I ask why?”

“_I . . . thought I was pregnant,_” she admitted.

Holy shit, his heart might have just stopped. For a handful of seconds, absolutely _nothing_ went through his mind. Nero was blank. His left hand acted on instinct and held the phone tighter in case he might drop it. The other held onto the edge of the bench-top.

Dante had noticed his sudden change of demeanour. Ever so casually, he took his bottle, had one last mouthful, and retreated to the door, leaving Vergil’s small home. For all intents and purposes, save the unconscious Vergil slumped awkwardly in his chair, Nero was alone for this conversation with Kyrie.

And he didn’t know how to feel about that. But she’d given him time to compose himself, not asking if he was still there and not hanging up on the momentarily dead line.

This was a conversation he was desperate to have with her, face to face. But as much as he wanted to leave this until he flew home, to hold her in his arms, he wasn’t convinced he wouldn’t spontaneously combust on the flight back.

“Wait-” he huffed, struggling to form words. “Then why- why am I _here_? With _Dante_?”

“_I wanted it to be a surprise. I wasn’t sure,_” came the soft voice. “_And . . . as it turns out, I was wrong._”

“_Wrong_?” Nero repeated, panic rising in his chest. “Wrong _how_?”

“_I wasn’t pregnant to begin with,_” Kyrie explained. His heart finally started to beat again, and Nero took a deep breath as she continued to talk. “_I asked Dante and Vergil to keep you distracted while I got the test. It came back negative._”

_It’s okay_, he told himself over, and over again. _She’s okay. Nothing bad happened._

Nero took at least three deep breaths, pressing his hand against his chest. “Kyrie?”

“_Yes?”_

“I love you,” he swallowed. For the first time this whole evening, he actually felt _cold_. “I wish I was there right now. I love you so much.”

“_I love you too, Nero,_” she sniffed. “_You’ll be home soon._”

They didn’t hang up the phone for a good half-hour after that. The more she talked about what spurned her assumptions about being pregnant, the more he calmed. Historically, Nero was easily riled at anything—he was always _feeling_, highly strung and quickly went from zero to a hundred in the right (or poorest) circumstances. He wasn’t like Vergil or Dante; he couldn’t outwardly appear fine at the drop of a hat. Hell, where Vergil’s combat with the Yamato was based on discipline, Nero’s use of the Red Queen was almost violent in comparison. He had to physically tire his own rage before he could permit himself to think clearly—and it was a flaw he was only just beginning to buff out.

With Kyrie, he’d always been cautious of himself. He’d made himself hide his arm when it’d changed, forced to reveal it only when Agnus had taken her against her will. To this day, Nero could count the amount of times Kyrie’s seen his devil form on one hand. The first of those times had unfortunately been during sex—and that had been awkward, uncontrolled, and a hundred percent awful when it’d happened. He’d been freaking out that she’d be freaking out, and she’d been freaking out because he might be freaking out: it was a horrible circular logic situation that had only subsided when Kyrie took his blue cheeks in hand and told him to _stop_, to _breathe_.

Her sending him to Amboise wasn’t a problem—he didn’t care that she’d made Dante distract him. He understood it perfectly. But that paranoid part of him did _not_ understand it perfectly. He attributed these jitters to his devil, always being on alert and fearing for her safety. And while they'd talked about having kids of their own, extensively, part of him was still uncertain. He _liked_ the idea. But it felt like he had some unresolved tension with his own father first. 

But finally, as the clock approached an obscene hour, the two said their goodnights. Nero placed the phone back on its receiver. His shoulders felt tired, like weights had been placed on and subsequently lifted from them over and over. His hands rubbed at his eyes.

“How is she?”

Vergil. Nero’s gaze shot over to him. He was pushing himself up in his seat, getting his leg more comfortable. “She’s good,” Nero nodded to himself. “Sick. Not pregnant.”

“I’m glad to hear she is well.”

Nero hummed in response, crossing his arms over his chest. His eyelids were heavy—he’d need to sleep soon. Get on the first plane out of France, with or without Dante. And the tensions with Vergil? Nero shook his head at himself. Kyrie first. Vergil's been waiting twenty-seven years. He can wait a little longer.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr! [galaxyostars](https://galaxyostars.tumblr.com) for my everything-and-anything blog, and [galaxyistyping](https://galaxyistyping.tumblr.com) for updates to fics (like this one).


End file.
